MORTON GROVE, IL -- Lynne Morris of Morris Gaming (Skokie) became Illinois's first operator to have legal, payoff video poker on Sept. 7. Morris operates video lottery terminals at Bringer Inn, a neighborhood tavern just north of Chicago that became the state's first location to go live with lottery. | SEE ABC VIDEO

Morris Gaming was founded in 2009, the year that Illinois passed its Video Gaming Act.

The Illinois Gaming Board said it is gradually bringing five locations online for a two-week test of the terminals, and the central computer system that administers them. VLTs in the second location, Opsahl's Tavern (Rockford), went live on Sept. 13.

The statewide launch of the VLT system will follow "as soon as (we) are confident that all the kinks have been worked out," an IGB spokesman told the Chicago Tribune. Some 175 locations have now applied for VLT licenses, the paper said.

According to the IGB website, VLTs will be legal in 566 of the state's 1,469 communities -- about 30% of the jurisdictions. But in 542 of these communities, no locations have applied for VLT licenses, the Tribune reported. SEE STORY